I'm a bit puzzled by something in this post, though, namely the statistic you quote about literacy in Paraguay. I'm not sure I understand. Mightn't it be the case that for every 100 men who can read and write, there are 200 illiterate men, whereas for every 100 women who can read and write, there are 88 illiterate women? In that case, the literacy figures would be much worse for men than women, which I think is the opposite of what you were trying to suggest. I don't believe this is the case, and I haven't tried to look up the figures, but I don't see how I can draw any meaningful conclusions from the knowledge that for every 100 literate men, there are 88 illiterate women. Can you help?